Dear Adrianne:

So, you've been gone a whole month and you haven't sent a single letter. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? You're not dead, are you?

Anyways, I'm bored senseless. Elizabeth keeps locking us out of the bedroom, and when we peek through the window she's always at the desk, writing or reading letters. Our—well, my—attempts to filch the letters have been thwarted by six different locks and a single strand of her hair on a black box.

My current theory is that guy, Wayde, from when I brought back George. He turned bright red whenever she looked at him, remember?

I can't wait for you to come back. We can't seem to convince Halt to let us play that game anymore.

Lots of love,

Apprentice Ranger Rosabel Stalon

PS I can't wait until I can get rid of the Apprentice part!

Dear Adrianne,

If you've gone and gotten yourself killed by Gallicans after all we've been through and survived, I will kill you.

At any rate, things have been boring lately. My only sources of amusement are letters from a certain male friend of mine, and Rosabel's attempts to pilfer the box I keep them in. And even those have subsided. I'm extremely suspicious at this point, and have taken to checking on rafters and under beds before getting the letters out.

The most amusing thing is, the letters aren't in the box! Not that she needs to know that. I'm very careful to move the box a millimetre and adjust the position of the hair and wipe dust off the locks so that she doesn't catch on.

Halt doesn't want to admit it, but he's really worried. We all are. You'd better answer us, immediately! We expect your letters yesterday, if you can make it.

Yours,

Beth

Dear Adrianne:

I hope you're not dead. I'll be very sad if you are, mostly because Kory's been a nightmare to live with since you've been gone.

Beth and Rose keep causing trouble just to amuse themselves. For instance, Beth waves letters in front of Rosabel's nose, only for her to find that they're not the ones from the mystery boy. Then once Rose stops grabbing the letters, she randomly starts waving actual letters from him in her face.

And Rose stole every last piece of guys' underwear and tacked it to the ceiling. I'm not quite sure how she reaches the ceiling, but it took Kory climbing up and standing on a stack of books to take them down, and then he fell because there were all sorts of cobwebs and spiders up there.

Luckily it occurred to Will to put bales of hay down there and then cover them with the mattresses, so your boyfriend's okay.

Miss you,

Missy

I didn't scream. Mostly because I could barely breathe as it was. I should have been screaming bloody murder, and I really wanted to. But running comes before screaming when three hundred people are running after you. Just. You.

My feet would be tattered skin and bone by the time I escaped. I needed to start wearing shoes 24/7. Even in bed. And hawking gloves. Because apparently running through cat briar cuts you open on every inch of your body. Surely thorns that short couldn't cut through my organs…

For a moment, I was glad Gilan had pushed me to my limit every day. I can't believe I thought that, but you know what, it just might have saved my life.

Adrenaline was pumping through my veins, providing strength to my limbs.

Just when I thought I was maybe, just maybe, going to live through the night, the barking started.

This whole world was against me tonight. It wasn't enough for me to be tortured after a battle—I had to escape by falling three stories and then running through the woods.

My nightmare had begun a week after we arrived here in Gallica. Some of the people still want a war, and they stormed the castle. We tried to fight them off, of course, and Gil and I killed at least a hundred people each, all by ourselves. I take that back—Alyss helped us push the boulder off the battlements, and that accounted for at least thirty total.

Then Gil, Alyss, George, and I were captured. They quickly realised Gil was in charge and I was closest to him, and they figured I'd be the most likely to spill the most secrets.

Naturally, thinking us barely human, they didn't realise that the only way to get me to talk was to torture them. Actually, I was pretty sure they'd thought us demons.

Every last limb was blazing with pain. Maybe if I stopped and curled up in a tiny ball, they'd run right past me. A girl could hope, right?

The little voice in my head that spoke in Rose's voice interrupted the self pity. "Up a tree, you idiot, what kind of Ranger are you?" She yelled at me.

I looked around and found a small tree—oh wait, never mind. That was an extremely large Devil's Walking Stick. I found an actual tree and bounded over to it. A handhold, a higher one, a foothold, a higher one… This looks SO much EASIER when Rosabel does it!

"Surely you can do better than that!" Beth's voice added.

"I'm working on it; don't get your quiver in a twist."

"Stop talking and move!" Halt snapped.

I made it out of eyesight just as the Gallicans crashed into the area. They called out in Gallic, and then it appeared some bright soul had the idea to set the dogs loose.

"Into the next tree." Rosabel said. "Grab a branch and then find a foothold. You can do it, oh brilliant one. Just don't trip over your bootlaces and fall to the dogs—that would be rather unfortunate."

I managed to make it onto a branch of another tree without falling onto the army. Rosabel cheered in some corner of my mind and completed her secret handshake with Marissa. It was rather… flattering… that all my voices were showing up to cheer me on.

"Never mind the fact that you're in a life-threatening situation. Keep going! More tree-hopping." Will added, trying to be as Halt-like as, well, Halt.

The Rosabel in my head rolled her eyes. "Give it up, Will, there's only one Halt."

I tried to close my eyes on them kissing, before realising this was in my head. "Hey, you can't do that in my brain!" I said.

"For God's sake, Adrianne, you don't have to talk." Halt snapped. "Just think at us. We're all in your head, after all."

Okay, so I was officially insane. I giggled hysterically and jumped into another tree. The dogs were barking up the wrong tree ("Haha," Rose said drily), the one I'd been in first. As I leapt from tree to tree a lot faster than before, I felt like that epic heroine from the stories told about us Rangers. Then I ran into a tree trunk.

"Nice one." Elizabeth commented.

But I was in no mood to joke around now that I was free of the Gallicans, who were shouting negative replies and doubtful questions to each other. "Where's Gilan?"

"You know exactly where he is. All you have to do is break into the rebels' fortress and save him." Halt said.

"Any idea on how to do that?"

The Rangers in my head looked at each other and shrugged, slowly vanishing.